CANADA-FRANCE-HAWAII TELESCOPE CORP

Programs

1. Observatory operations canada-france-hawaii telescope (cfht) is a high-tech service provider delivering exquisite astronomical data leading to scientific discoveries at the forefront of today's astronomy. Cfht operates, maintains, and develops state-of-the-art instrumentation on its telescope located at the top of maunakea in hawai'I, one of the best sites in the world for astronomical research, servicing the scientific communities from canada, france, and hawai'I, and through collaborative agreements with taiwan and china. In addition, cfht has trained staff members who perform all scientific observations on behalf of its astronomical community and process the data stemming from those observations. For 356 of the 365 nights of 2025, the schedule had one of our 5 instruments on the telescope and acquired data as weather permitted. During the remaining 9 nights, the technical and scientific staff performed a scheduled technical activity to recoat the primary mirror of the telescope, a series of tasks that are scheduled every 3 years. In addition to three large programs involving dozens of scientists from communities worldwide, cfht performed observations for over 100 proposals,…

   $8,268,524 spentof which $20,038 as grants$880,573 earned by the program
   98% of program spending

2. Development activities - maunakea spectroscopic explorer (mse) project in december 2024, the cfht board of directors recommended not approving any additional funds for mse activities beyond what is strictly necessary to responsibly and safely stop current operations. Following this recommendation, cfht halted all mse activities in 2025. While mse remains the long-term goal for the cfht site, its immediate focus is to ensure it remains a viable operational entity until mse can commence under the new astronomy lease at maunakea.

   $194,148 spent
   2% of program spending

3. In 2025, all our state-of-the-art instruments were available to the cfht community. We operate five instruments remotely during normal operations, which also includes two benchmark surveys: (1) to discover nearby earth-like planets in the habitable zone of the most nearby stars, and (2) to answer some of the most fundamental questions in astronomy about the properties of dark matter and dark energy, the growth of structure in the universe from galactic to galaxy cluster scales, and the assembly of the milky-way, and (3) to discover, track, and characterize small solar system objects beyond the orbit of neptune to test planet formation models. Cfht operated at full capacity in 2025.

The 3 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $8,462,672.